Comics from India keep up with changing times, and publishers respect suitability for children

France24 wrote about India's comics, which draw from early local mythologies:

Nearly six decades later, the comic, known simply as ACK and meaning "immortal illustrated stories", is still holding its ground in an era ruled by smartphones and streaming television.

Founded by storyteller Anant Pai after he noticed children on a quiz show knew more about Greek gods than their own mythological heroes, ACK quickly became a cultural touchstone.

Its titles, from tales of Hindu deities to biographies of freedom fighters, sold in the millions and were translated into multiple regional languages. [...]

Production depends on the same painstaking research, writing and colouring, although some images of deities have evolved.

"We used to have a very slender Ram, a very slender Shiva, drawn lovingly by artists who drew by hand," said Puri, 68, who has been with ACK for 34 years.

"Today the artists... give them six-pack abs and muscles."

Not all fans love the makeover, but Puri said times change.

"Children today are not used to that old kind of art," Puri said. "We have to adapt to what the children want."

Storytelling has also shifted.

"If, earlier, we used to show the man sitting with a newspaper, and the woman sweeping the floor or cooking food, that's changed," she added.

"It could be the woman sitting and reading a book, and the man gets her a cup of tea."

That's okay, because even women need a rest and a good cup of tea or coffee. That doesn't mean it's wrong, however, to draw a woman doing household chores, but perhaps a balance of both men and women doing housework could be helpful. One other thing that's amazing about this history item is the following:

But one frontier is firmly off‑limits: artificial intelligence.

"Art is to be respected, a writer's work is to be respected", Puri said.

Comic designer Srinath Malolan, 24, who grew up reading ACK in his school library, said the human-made process ensures content remains safe for children.

"The internet can create whatever it wants... we have meticulously looked at what we are giving the kids," Malolan said.

Wow, that's showing a lot more responsibility than what's been seen in the west this past decade or more. Obviously, if you know where to look in the east, there's respect for family and parental values in retaining good taste. I'm sure even in the west, these comics could resonate, so let's hope the publishers make an effort to market them in the USA too, if they haven't done so yet.

New mural in Stockton dedicated to the Fantastic Four

CBS News in Sacramento reports there's a mural that's been painted on a building in Stockton that's dedicated to the Marvel team that boosted Marvel's profile in the Silver Age:

As you're walking down Miracle Mile in Stockton, you may hear the sounds of colorful graffiti when all the sudden, you come across a striking mural.

"Behind us is the iconic Fantastic Four mural that is currently being worked on," co-organizer Orlando Molina said.

The Fantastic Four, the classic team from Marvel, is coming to life at another classic spot: Al's Comic Shop.

"It is inspired by the old comic book with The Thing on the front that claims that Stockton is the hometown of the Fantastic Four," Molina explained. "It's a very rare comic. Al's Comics, which is right here in the building, they have the comic and they had Stan Lee visit here and kind of do the stamp of approval."

Al's Comic Shop owner Al Greco can be seen in a picture right next to Marvel creator Stan Lee in 1986. That's when Stockton was officially recognized as the hometown and birthplace of these four hometown heroes.

This was a moment Greco pushed for and succeeded.

"It was a big day for Stockton. When Stan Lee came, he went to the city and they gave him a key. Then he came here and kind of signed all day for kids," Greco continued. "He was a nice guy. He was friendly. He had Spider-Man with him, jumping around."

Now isn't that great. Painting a mural on a local building is certainly more worthwhile at this point than reading the modern comics output from Marvel, and it's too bad the publisher couldn't have closed down in the early-to-mid-2000s, because that could've minimized the damage Joe Quesada brought about when he became EIC. So congratulations on this new mural being painted in the city. But it's a shame that Marvel's modern output dampens the impact that could've been had if they'd stopped publishing comics years earlier. If they had, Lee's legacy could've worked far better for this.

A project to uplift Black indie creators

The Post and Courier/Free Times (Columbia, SC) reports on a project designed to give a boost to Black creators (archive link), and also involves a special contest:

A new Columbia publishing house is working to uplift small comic creators with its new anthology project.

Simple But Complex takes after its namesake. Created by local Steven Nesbitt, this small, Black-owned publishing initiative looks to provide indie creators a platform to publish works on, while also granting opportunities for writers and artists just starting out.

“It's this giant publishing initiative that I want to create to make comic books accessible to people,” Nesbitt said. “Whether it's just reading them, whether it's through having access to create them or having a streamlined way for you to be part of the community.”

The name itself comes from Nesbitt’s own personal motto, the main motivator behind his work.

“Everything I do, I want it to be simple for the person coming to me,” Nesbitt explained, “and then I'll just handle the complexities so that we don't have to worry about it.”

Nesbitt kickstarted the company in early 2024, publishing three of his own comics through Simple But Complex digitally and physically. They are the only published works listed on the company’s website, but Nesbitt hopes that will change thanks to his upcoming “Twisted History” anthology project.

The “Twisted History” anthology asks comic creators to “twist” a piece of history into something supernatural or mythically eerie and submit their piece to Simple But Complex for review. The winners’ works will be published in the subsequent anthology and receive a cash prize.

But the anthology is more than just a pushing off point for Nesbitt. He believes everyone has the potential for storytelling. For him, the anthology has the ability to help guide that potential into a fully realized idea.

From this, it sounds like the guy's developed a challenge of writing something surreal, and if you play the cards right, it's entirely possible to turn out something impressive in that sense. Which makes clear there are people out there who do believe in the potential surrealism can have. And he's right, everybody's got the potential for being a great storyteller if they put in some effort. So good luck to him with his new publishing outfit, and let's hope he finds some good contributors with creativity to offer.

What Polygon says about the new Wonder Man TV show

Polygon wrote about the new TV program running on Disney Plus based on Wonder Man/Simon Williams, one of the most notable members of the Avengers in decades past, and what they say about his exact history in the following paragraph is rather confusing:

In the comics, however, Wonder Man’s origins are vastly different from his TV counterpart’s. Despite his deep ties to the Avengers, most notably Vision, his footprint in both the comics and the MCU has been surprisingly minimal. Add in his close friendship with Beast and his broader connections to the X-Men, and there’s a lot to unpack when digging into everything you need to know about Marvel’s next installment.

Oh, please. His presence in comicdom was anything but minor, considering he was cast in West Coast Avengers later on. But, if you want an example of where things went wrong with the use of Simon in past Marvel publication, there's the worthless 1991-94 solo series written by the disgraced Gerard Jones, which, like several other comics he wrote, contained dreadful sexual/political allusions, and that was definitely a stain on the character's publication history. With shoddy stories like those around, is it any wonder such an otherwise impressive creation could end up having minimal footprints? And, there's another problematic moment in Marvel history itself dating back nearly 2 decades ago to consider:

Wonder Man isn’t a mutant in the comics, though. But after he had a falling out with The Avengers over the Human Registration Act (the equivalent of the Sokovia Accords in the MCU) during the Civil War crossover event, he became a de facto homie of the X-Men. During Civil War, Simon vowed to never use his powers again and to use his public relations skills more instead.

One of the most insulting to the intellect crossovers ever produced when Joe Quesada was EIC, built on some very terrible premises making the USA look bad just because of a right-wing government being in charge, and they have the gall to sugarcoat that. Let's be clear. I don't think Captain America - or even Wonder Man - should've been written supporting the Human Registration Act, but neither did I want Iron Man to be depicted doing so. Yet they obscured all that for the sake of asking readers whose side they're on, not whether the story had merit, or was lacking. And to think, the crossover was produced for the sake of depicting WM shunning use of his powers? For shame. That was disrespectful to creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. At the article's end, it mentions:

Now that he’s back, still a pacifist, Wonder Man maintains his X-Men ties: He’s developed a strong friendship with the apelike mutant Hank McCoy, aka Beast, whose extroverted personality complements the more introspective Simon. Wonder Man considers Beast his best friend, a friendship that developed during their time as Avengers. The last time we saw Wonder Man in the comics was in Astonishing Avengers Infinity Comic #30 in 2025, but the character has a self-titled limited series expected to debut in Marvel Comics on March 18.

Which I'd advise all to stay away from. And if Simon's still depicted as a "pacifist" according to what Civil War set in motion, that's very bad and sad, and makes a mockery of what the character was created for, much like Captain America, Iron Man, and even the Beast. Assuming the TV miniseries goes more by the original premise of the past century, that's why it'd only be head-shaking if WM's allowed to be portrayed according to what earlier comics writers set up, but back in modern comics, Marvel's staff won't allow it, resulting in an absurd contradiction. Yet it wouldn't be surprising if the TV show did follow what was set up by Civil War, based on where Hollywood's been going for a long time now.

Regardless of that, because of how bad Marvel comics became under Quesada and Axel Alonso, that's one more reason why I'm not up to watching a lot of these live action films and TV shows at this point, because if the films and TV programs portrayed the characters as they originally were, why aren't comics writers willing to or allowed to do the same? The contradictions only make it a joke, but then, the live action films have become pretty woke regardless in the past several years, so it's not like there's much to look forward to now anyway. But to conclude, I will say that Wonder Man/Simon Williams, as a creation of Lee/Kirby, deserves far better, like many other creations major and minor who've been destroyed as storytelling vehicles by political correctness in over a quarter-century. And it won't happen under the current corporate managements and ownerships.

Update: and as noted here, the TV adaptation is little more than DEI propaganda. So clearly, something did go wrong, as expected.

An illustrated history of cocktails

The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat (archive link) interviewed David Wondrich, a historian from New York who's turned his research on cocktails into a graphic novel with an artist named Dean Kotz:

New York-based cocktail historian David Wondrich had most recently finished editing an 860-plus-page compendium of knowledge about cocktail history when the opportunity arose to share cocktail history through a different medium: as a graphic nonfiction book.

The author took on the challenge, teaming up with illustrator Dean Kotz to take readers on a journey around the world, following the world’s drinking preferences from Colonial-era punches to Prohibition, from the rise of the 1930s tiki trend to the modern-day craft cocktail movement and beyond — plus much more along the way, including an array of cocktail recipes. We recently caught up with Wondrich to learn more.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What inspired you to tell the history of cocktails through a comic book?

A: I had thought about doing a cocktail-themed comic book for quite a long time. I was talking to Ten Speed Press a couple years back, and they mentioned their comic book history series and asked if I would be interested in doing that. I said yes.

Q: You cover so much history in the book. How did you go about curating that history and figuring out which stories to include?

A: I was very familiar with the history because I’ve been writing cocktail history for 25 years. For my last book before this one, I was the editor-in-chief and principal writer of the “Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails,” a huge reference book that includes histories and biographies of famous bartenders, as well as other related information. So a lot of the information was pretty fresh in my mind. That said, I always research my books anew and see what else I can find and what other connections I can make. There were some periods in some places that were completely new to me, and that was fun. I tried to tell as many stories as I possibly could. I’ve written at length, for instance, about the history of African American bartenders, which was really deeply buried. I also did a lot of research on Asian and Pacific Islander bartenders in America.

Q: What was it like translating that history into comic book form? How did that process work with the illustrator?

A: It was really hard. I did this not because it was easy, but because I thought it would be easy. But it turned out to be really difficult. My editor insisted that this should be a real history with documentation, so I couldn’t skip over bits or dramatize stuff too much. I had to make sure that it gave you a good, solid, accurate history, while at the same time trying to make it as lively as possible. [...]

Q: What are you hoping people take away from the book?

A: I’m hoping they get a sense of the people involved. These drinks are things that were made by people, for people. I’m hoping they can see themselves in the book and find what really resonates with them in the tradition of mixing drinks. My main hope is that people find it interesting, that it gives them stuff to talk about, and that they can understand where their favorite drinks came from.

The only problem I have with this is that it also appears to be about the history of how alcohol's made, since there are cocktails made with liquor, and I don't consider it healthy to drink liquor. Fruit cocktails are decidedly far better so long as they're not made with liquor/alcohol. I'm sure the history of cocktails is one worth telling, but does that mean it's healthy to drink? Not really, unless maybe it's wine-based. So congratulations to the guy for producing this GN, but I don't think drinking alcohol should be encouraged, even through comic panels. What would be far better is if there's comics teaching why alcohol, even cocktail-based, isn't a good example, and there are some out there, no doubt, taking an objective view of liquor and alcohol. I just wish Wondrich and Kotz's comic did so too, but somehow, I doubt it.

Sacramento finally repealing its ban on selling comics to minors

The US Sun reports the Sacramento city council's finally taken official steps to repeal the 1949 ban on selling comics to minors, as previously noted here:

A LONG-FORGOTTEN rule has just been wiped from the books, meaning comics can now be legally handed to kids.

The decades-old ban was so broad it technically put everyday comic culture on the wrong side of the law.

The change happened in Sacramento, California, after city leaders voted to scrap a 1949 ordinance.

On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council repealed the rule at its regular meeting.

Up until Tuesday afternoon, it was illegal in the city to give a child a comic book under the old prohibition, NBC affiliate KCRA reported. [...]

The repeal passed unanimously after being placed on the council’s consent calendar for non-controversial items.

That's great, but we have to hope it's being done altruistically, as I may have noted before, because the following from a local cartoonist is eyebrow raising:

Local cartoonist Eben Burgoon led the push to get the law removed.

He told ABC10 he viewed it as a free speech issue.

“We wanted to get rid of it and then when we started to see some more freedom of speech issues occurring. Some more graphic novels lately have been become, like, the most banned book across the country,” Burgoon said.

This is fishy, because what if he's alluding to LGBT propaganda comics that were put in school libraries, no matter how mature-themes and unsuited for children they were? It's one thing to sell through a store, but a school library is an entirely different issue, parents do have the right to determine what's suitable for their children's reading, and there's a reason why the MPAA developed their ratings system in the late 1960s for films, and in the 1990s, ratings were developed for video games, and even for comics there was a rating system produced around the 2000s. What if there was a rule that comics had to be sold to children according to suitability ratings? Would that be wrong? Similar cases could surely be made for ordinary books. So then you could sell all sorts of entertainment products, just having to follow the law as to whether it's suitable for them. Is that wrong by contrast?

So I wish some advocates wouldn't just frame this all as only a free speech issue, because while selling comics to children is fine and dandy, it's not acceptable to encourage them to read stuff that's unsuitable from an adult perspective. It'll remain to be seen if this change of law in Sacramento isn't exploited by woke advocates for the sake of foisting propaganda that could have a bad influence on children ideologically. And we should certainly hope that won't be the case.

New TV show based on an Image comic reeks of political themes, and has a most unfortunate casting choice

Time's giving a description of a new TV show, The Beauty, starring Ryan Murphy, which is based on a fantasy comic from Image, although there appears to be a cast member here who's got some very bad political positions. First:

If you had the chance to be beautiful, would you take it? We’re not talking about mere attractiveness, but a near-immediate physical metamorphosis into a perfect human specimen. Sounds tempting, but of course there’s a catch. That’s the premise of Ryan Murphy’s new FX show, The Beauty, co-created and co-written by Matt Hodgson. In the show, The Beauty is an STI that transforms a person into someone physically perfect, but with deadly consequences. Except nobody who has The Beauty knows that.

It’s almost impossible not to draw comparisons to The Substance, the 2024 horror movie that became a breakaway box-office smash and multi-Oscar nominee. It also spawned countless reactions (positive and negative) about its depictions of what a woman (played by Demi Moore) will do in the pursuit of a younger, more beautiful version of herself. The Beauty gleefully leans into these comparisons with Coralie Fargeat’s film, even casting Demi Moore’s ex-husband, Ashton Kutcher, in a key role.

But The Beauty is not a rip-off of The Substance. It’s actually based on a comic book of the same name by Image Comics, which ran from 2015-2021. Here’s what to know about the source material for the new series, which has drawn solid reviews since its three-episode premiere.

What happens in “The Beauty” comics?

At the start of the comics, created by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley, two years have elapsed since The Beauty took over the world. It’s a rampant and sought after sexually transmitted disease, capable of transforming those infected with it into someone conventionally, well, beautiful. As the comic describes, changes to people with The Beauty include “fat melted away, thinning hair returned, skin blemishes faded, and their facial features slimmed.” Unlike other diseases, people covet The Beauty. It’s believed that half the world has the disease, including around 200 million Americans.

The Beauty has caused enormous division between those who have it and those who don’t. For some, it’s the ultimate status symbol; for others, a complete and utter betrayal of humankind. Activist groups that are both pro- and anti-Beauty have emerged, with hate crimes, homicides, and bombings on the rise as divisions deepen.

I don't know how to say this, but there's something eerily political about this, and atop that, it sounds like the kind of story premise that villifies and gives beauty itself a bad name. Seeing as this comic first premiered at least a decade ago, when political correctness became tragically more common, it does sound like quite a product of its time. And look who one of the cast members is:

While the comics start with the disease in full swing and known worldwide, The Beauty is very much under wraps at the beginning of the show. The first episode opens with a model (Bella Hadid) wreaking havoc on the streets of Paris before she shockingly combusts. Two FBI agents, Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) and Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall), are sent to investigate and uncover a string of models dying in a similar fashion across Europe.

They cast Hadid, an Islamist who identifies as a "palestinian", and who, much like her sister Gigi, is hostile to Israel? Seriously, it's hard to get around this kind of casting choice, which was surely no accident, and also note how her character causes a ruckus in France, a country that's been turned into a horror story over past decades by Islam. Having somebody as awful as Hadid in this is another embarrassment. And that's not all:

They discover that before these models died, they underwent extraordinary physical changes, and none of them are recognizable compared to photos taken a few years prior. That’s because they have The Beauty, a disease transmitted through sex, as in the comics, that turns you into a new, incredibly attractive person.

The first episode largely focuses on the male perspective through the eyes of the angry, lonely, and depressed Jeremy (Jaquel Spivey). An incel, Jeremy is desperate for change and sick of feeling that he’s repulsive to women. On an online message board, he finds out about a plastic surgeon. But that surgery goes poorly, and he’s still unable to attract women. A furious Jeremy shoots up the surgeon’s office. But before he kills the surgeon, the latter offers Jeremy a miracle solution. The surgeon brings Jeremy a woman, who carries The Beauty, who has sex with Jeremy, turning him into a whole new man (literally, as he’s played by Jeremy Pope post-transformation).

What is this? They're even using a nasty, divisive slur of the past decade that was applied to men who allegedly denigrate women because they're not having luck in winning them over. And to think they even go so far as to make the character here commit a violent shooting over initial failure, but of course, nobody seems to care about school shootings that became more common since Columbine, or even Islamic terrorism. It's clear the writers/artists were resorting to some cheap premises when they concocted this tale for Image, and that doesn't reflect well on the practices of the comics industry any more than any other entertainment medium.

If this is what comicdom and Hollywood are continuing to churn out, then they're not improving, and all they're doing is delivering little more than a stealth message that physical beauty is something bad. Stories depicting sex negatively are nothing new in entertainment, but the way it continues now is extremely disturbing at this point. I think this is something worth avoiding, and it's no surprise most showbiz critics could gush over such a sleazy production. "The Beauty" sounds a lot more like unnecessary ugliness.

Artist Sal Buscema dies at 89

Fox5 of San Diego reports the veteran artist Sal Buscema, younger brother of the late John Buscema, has died at 89 years of age:

Comic book fans are mourning a legendary artist who made his mark on major franchises belonging to Marvel Comics, DC Comics and others after his passing over the weekend.

Sal Buscema, a pencil artist known for his designs on “The Incredible Hulk” and “The Spectacular Spider-Man,” died at the age of 89.

Buscema was a well-known figure during the “Silver Age” of comics (1960s) and through the 1970s, giving shape to recognizable characters like the Hulk and Spider-Man.

He followed in the footsteps of his older brother, John Buscema, who was also an industry leader with significant runs on “The Avengers” and “The Silver Surfer.”

Some could say that, much like his brother, Sal was the kind of talent who sadly got disrespected by later managements of Marvel/DC, given what a shoddy mess they became at the turn of the century, one that destroyed stuff the Buscemas worked hard to develop in their time. And that's obviously a shame. Sal was as good a creator as John was decades before.

For now, let's appreciate Sal as much as John for the wonderful contributions they both made during the Silver/Bronze Ages, and what'll really be great is if there's any modern artists out there who're willing to emulate their styles for more positive projects than what Marvel/DC are turning out today.